Ahoy, there be sea-monkerlets about!

Random Update: New Pets

If you’ve know me well enough, you’d remember that I’ve always been fascinated by Sea Monkeys. I have had a total of three batches (including the latest one) over the last three years or so, some not so viable, some much more so. Here’s basically a log of my previous batches up to date (as far as I can remember)

Batch One: 2007

First batch I ever bought, this one came with the Sea Monkey starter pack I got from Toys R Us because it was going cheaper than normal (about RM30-ish) and decided to use it for a public speaking presentation in college. Used tap water (big mistake) and hatched them. I can’t remember how many hatched, but the amount was moderate. Two weeks, they were alright. Discovered that I needed to aerate water, did so with a straw. Placed them in my room, which had practically no lighting during the day (positioning made my room be in perpetual darkness) and they were placed next to my PC speakers. This batch lasted one of the longest despite my inexperienced handling of them. Once I put in cold bottled water (yike!) to replace a spill one of my classmates made with the tank when I brought it for presentation. Another time I used a hair-dryer to warm up the tank a bit (because I read that they needed warmth) so apparently I temperate tortured them quite a bit. My tank survived for about three months-ish until my paternal grandma’s funeral, which called me away to Seremban for a few days. When I came back, my tank water was this unhealthy gray stuff, and all my sea monkeys were belly up save one or two. Sifting the water for the dead ones and cleaning whatever I could, I put the survivors back in. Both die within a couple of days. I left the tank outside on my balcony to dehydrate in hopes that I’ll still have un-hatched eggs inside. Two months later, checked and poured water in, no life. Oh well.

Batch Two: End 2007

Cleaned out the tank as well as I could with a water jet and bought Packet 1: Water Purifier, Packet 2: Instant Eggs and one pack of Red Vitamin food for the little sea monkerlets. Used bottled water that I had boiled and left overnight (to be safe) and started the process. The weather was cold so I guess it was my bad luck, I had shifted to a brighter and warmer room so I was hoping that it’d be better. From here, the batch only had three hatchlings. These grew and I fed them the vitamins, they were quite healthy. They survived about 2 months, I didn’t thermally abuse them like the last batch, gave them some sunshine, fed them on time and aerated with a million bubble air pump every two days. Then one mysteriously died after getting entangled in this strange fibrous stuff at the bottom of my tank, removed the tangley stuff and the body. The next day the other one disappeared, and I found it had swam into that tiny hole at the bottom of the tank and couldn’t get out. Despite efforts to suck it out with my aqua leash (which has gone missing now) and going to find the Sea-Medic formula and didn’t find any, even in the Petroscience shop in KLCC. The last one lived for awhile, but eventually died. Am suspicious it died from loneliness. Cleaned out tank completely, put everything aside. Lost the calibrated feeding spoon while moving out.

Batch Three: Late March 2009.

Started a couple of days ago, decided to try something funny. Used tap water thats been left out, used the water purifier, but towards the last few hours of the 24 hour waiting period for the purifier to work, I tipped in a tiny bit of Packet 2 Instant Eggs to see if anything happened. Naturally, nothing did, but when I came back a couple of hours later, there were a few baby sea monkeys swimming around. Okay, not too bad a start. Later I poured in the rest of Packet 2. Checked it roughly 12 hours later, and the tank was full of the little critters. I have never seen so many hatch out at one go before. Counted more than twenty, and now they sit next to my work table at home which is next to my window (curtained of course) and are getting a decent amount of warmth every day. They’re pretty lively too. We’ll see what happens as their first critical week passes by. =)